by Bill Haley | Feb 13, 2024 | Liturgical Seasons
For a long time I’ve liked to think of Lent as a coming home, a turning around from whatever takes me from God and a coming back home into the arms of the loving forgiveness of God. It’s a time to reflect on the subtleties of sin and sins in our own lives, for...
by Bill Haley | Jan 17, 2024 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
Did you know that in the church year, Epiphany can be celebrated on a day, or for a whole season? This year I’m appreciating remembering that Jesus is the light of the world, the epiphany of God, who still shines, and wants to through us. That’s the invitation and...
by Bill Haley | Dec 6, 2023 | Contemplative Life
by Rick Mastroianni | Mar 30, 2022 | Contemplative Life
A reflection on the fullness of Jesus as our Good Shepherd in light of Psalm 23, John 10:1-18 , Rev. 5, and Rev. 7:17. “The Lamb is My Shepherd”The Slain-Lamb Lord is also my Good Shepherd. What more could I want?He makes me rest in his green grass of...
by Coracle | Jul 2, 2021 | Contemplative Life
In this “Space for God” devotional, Dr. Ben Sammons guides us through a reflective reading of “Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous” a poem by acclaimed poet and theologian Scott Cairns. The poem invites us into a spiritual exercise meant to...
by Coracle | Jul 21, 2020 | Contemplative Life
On July 16th, 2020, Rev. Karen Curry of Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church offered a workshop on “Poetry as Spiritual Formation.” She facilitates a discussion of her own original poem “Holy, Wholly Holey Ground,” shares how lectio divina can be...
by Coracle | Apr 15, 2020 | Contemplative Life, Creation
by Ann Bodling, Coracle Spiritual Director In this strange, disorienting, sometimes-hopeful sometimes-fearful, sometimes-sad time, I can forget. The gifts are here, as always. The Presence of God is here, as always. To recognize them I need to notice, as always. And...
by Rick Mastroianni | Dec 16, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Liturgical Seasons
She insisted on seeing me face-to-face, unveiled, defying all custom for the betrothed to remain apart until the wedding feast. I watched her eyes rain when she saw doubt and pain in mine. They said it was a good match: me from David’s royal line, she connected to...
by Coracle | Dec 6, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Vocation
Poem and Reflection by Julie Harrison Eastwood Coracle Fellow, Class of 2019 Eucharist Song Prepare the fields lay them open and ready to receive graft and seed to be baptized with rain with tears as we wait in the hospitable silence Sing with the fields greening in...
by Drew Masterson | Sep 24, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Creation
Robert Frost once defined poetry as a “way of remembering what it would impoverish us to forget.” Poetry emerged as the first form of literary writing in human history way back in the 3rd Millennium BCE, and indeed the vast majority of ancient literature comes down to...
by Coracle | Sep 24, 2019 | Contemplative Life, Creation
A poem by Julie Harrison Eastwood Written during the first Coracle Fellowship retreat in January, on a grassy little island just big enough to sit on, beside the water. Forgiveness is Love, said the winter-swollen creek. Impatience is the brush-tinder for every bad...
by Coracle | Sep 23, 2019 | Contemplative Life
In mid-May of this year, 2019 Coracle Fellow and accomplished painter, Carolyn Marshall Wright, sustained a serious concussion. The injury, from which she is still recovering, left her largely confined to her home for the next four months, where she alternated between...
by Coracle | Jan 6, 2019 | Liturgical Seasons
O God, who am I now? Once, I was secure in familiar territory in my sense of belonging unquestioning of the norms of my culture the assumptions built into my language the values shared by my society. But now you have called me out and away from home and I do not know...
by Coracle | Dec 30, 2017 | Contemplative Life
John Rogers wrote this poem two years ago regarding his experiences sailing his own boat as well as angst over US politics. He found our website while studying the story from John 21 about Peter and the other disciples fishing. Thank you for sharing this beautiful...
by Coracle | Mar 20, 2016 | Liturgical Seasons
We’re borrowing from G.K. Chesterton and posting a poem told from the perspective of the animal on which Jesus entered Jerusalem. Welcome to Holy Week everyone! The Donkey BY G. K. CHESTERTON When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some...
by Bill Haley | Oct 9, 2015 | Contemplative Life
Eucharist* by Bill Haley The new day breaks with golden hue and sunlight fills the room, with promise and peace and promises of peace, three coming inconsistently while they wrestle with a season’s gloom. But still they come, a warrior trinity to fight fiends and...
